Alamo Traces

by Thomas Ricks Lindley

  Given Zuber’s allegations in the previous statement, one would think he had been in the Alamo during the last days. He could not have known what Dickinson or Joe did or did not do while in the Alamo. Also, the statement conflicts with Zuber’s 1877 letter to Adjutant General William Steele. Remember, Zuber said that Dickinson had been taken out of the Alamo before March 3. But in 1901 Steele had been dead since mid-January 1885, so Zuber did not have to worry about what he had written Steele, or any contradiction from Dickinson, who had died in 1883. Thus Zuber was right about one thing. In 1901 there was probably no living person who could have contested his Moses Rose tall tale.54

  Another challenge Zuber addressed in the talk was the time of John W. Smith’s departure from the Alamo with Travis’s March 3 letters. Zuber wrote: “Rose left the Alamo on the afternoon of March 3d, and historians say that the courier, Captain Smith, left on the night of the 3d. If it were certain that Smith left on the night following the 3d after Rose left, this would prove Rose’s statement to be false; for Smith said nothing of Travis’s speech. But Smith certainly left before that night. I have no doubt that he left on the 3d, and in the night; but his departure evidently was on the morning of the 3d, between midnight and daybreak – say soon after midnight.”55

  Old age surely had caught up with Zuber’s ability to spin a tall tale. His story about Smith contains a major flaw that even Zuber should have seen. Travis wrote that “J. [James] B. [Butler] Bonham (a courier from Gonzales) got in this morning at eleven o’clock. . . .” Travis also wrote: “A reinforcement of about one thousand men is now entering Bexar from the west and I think it more than probable that Santa Anna is now in town, from the rejoicing we hear.” Travis appears to have been writing about the entry of the “battalions of Zapadores, Aldama, and Toluca” that marched into Bexar between 4:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. Thus, Travis was writing a long letter to the Washington-on-the-Brazos convention at the time Zuber claims Rose said Travis was drawing his line in the sand. Moreover, Smith could not have departed the Alamo on the morning of March 3 because Travis had yet to write the March 3 letters.56

  Mrs. Adele B. Looscan, historian for the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, also noticed the Bonham data and challenged Zuber on his departure time for Smith. Then she concluded that Smith had departed “in the evening of 3d of March, in all likelihood after dark. Zuber responded the way many Alamo historians do when they are confronted with evidence opposing their opinions. He argued, without any evidence to support his view, that Travis was wrong about when Bonham entered the Alamo. Zuber wrote: “I believe that my note in the QUARTERLY of October, 1901, – The Escape of Rose From the Alamo, – proves that Travis being weary and pressed for time, made a blunder (surely not an extraordinary one), and that his meaning was ‘yesterday morning,’ ‘last evening,’ or ‘tonight.’ ”57

  Zuber then continued with a long-winded argument detailing why Smith could not have obtained “good roadsters” (strong American horses) to ride, so “he could not have performed the trip in less than four days; and therefore that, as he arrived at Washington on the sixth, he left the Alamo soon after midnight on the morning of March the third.” Never mind that “four days” travel would have had Smith arriving in Washington-on-the-Brazos after midnight on March 7.58

  Concluding his response to Looscan, Zuber said: “I deem the time of Smith’s departure from the Alamo a subject of special importance, because it directly bears upon the proof of the reality of Travis’s speech as orally reported by Rose and published by me.” On that point Zuber was right. He was just wrong about when Smith left the Alamo.59

  Almonte’s diary was not readily available until 1945 when it appeared in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly. Thus Looscan and Zuber probably did not know it contained two March entries that verified Travis’s report of a large enemy reinforcement entering San Antonio on the afternoon of March 3. The Jose Enrique de la Pena Campaign Diary, which shows that the Mexican troops entered Bexar between 4:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m., was not even known when Looscan and Zuber were debating the Rose story. The manuscript has yet to be translated and published. The two Mexican sources, coupled with Travis’s March 3 missive, leave no doubt about when Travis wrote the missive.

  Moreover, in March 1838 John W. Smith, in the probate of Alamo defender James Lee Ewing’s estate, testified that: “He [Smith] left him [Ewing] in the Alamo on the Friday night previous to its fall. . . .” Friday night would have been the night of March 4, 1836. Clearly, Smith rode out of the Alamo after the alleged time of Travis’s speech and Rose’s escape.60

  The evidence, however, suggests that Smith did not carry Travis’s March 3 letters out of the Alamo. First, Travis’s February 23 note to Andrew Ponton at Gonzales took fifty-three hours to reach San Felipe, and Washington-on-the-Brazos was about forty miles farther north. Thus if Smith had taken the missive out on the night of March 4, the letter would have had to have made the trip to the convention in forty hours or less. Second, given that Travis appears to have written his missive to the convention in late afternoon of March 3, it seems unlikely that he would have waited over twenty-four hours to send it out. However, if that were the case, one would think there would be a second letter or postscript that detailed the daytime events of March 4. There is no such document. Everything considered, the March 3 letters were most likely taken out of the Alamo by David Crockett on the night of March 3, when he and two other men rode to the Cibolo ford on the Gonzales road in search of Colonel James W. Fannin’s relief group. At the ford the documents were probably transferred to another rider, perhaps Crockett’s nephew William Patton, who carried them to Gonzales. William Bull appears to have been the final courier who carried the letters to Washington-on-the-Brazos. In the end, given Zuber’s own requirement of proof (Smith’s departure time), the Rose story is false.61

  Given the totality of the evidence, the Moses Rose escape yarn appears to have been Zuber’s creation, rather than the report of a true event. Or is that the whole story? One element in this long running argument that historians and Alamo aficionados have failed to notice is that the first report of Travis’s alleged speech to his men on March 3 did not originate with Zuber. The story first appeared in the summer of 1836 with the publication of Col. Crockett’s Exploits and Adventures in Texas, a spurious David Crockett diary. The alleged journal’s entry for March 3 reads: “We have given over all hopes of receiving assistance from Goliad or Refugio. Colonel Travis harangued the garrison, and concluded by exhorting them, in case the enemy should carry the fort to fight to the last gasp, and render their victory even more serious to them than to us. This was followed by three cheers.” While it is impossible to know for sure, the Crockett diary entry appears to be the springboard Zuber used to create the Moses Rose story.62

  Zuber’s inspiration for the “line” element of the Rose tale may have been an incident that occurred a few minutes previous to the Battle of San Jacinto. Zuber missed the fight because he was a member of the baggage guard. Still, there is every reason to believe he could have heard the episode reported around the victory campfires on the night of April 21 or sometime afterward. The incident was reported by L. L. Cunningham, a veteran of the fight, who wrote: “Before the battle, the officer of the day, when the men were drawn up, asked all those who were afraid to face a loaded cannon to step out of the ranks, and there were two as big and healthy looking men [as] I ever saw who stepped out of my regiment.” Undoubtedly, the two men were given a hard time after the Texians’ decisive victory.63

  More likely, Zuber based his line story on an incident that took place on the Colorado River in the vicinity of Columbus on the morning of March 26, 1836. In 1844 Angelina Eberly told Mary Austin Holley that Captain Sidney Sherman had told her: “Our spies reported no danger of reinforcement [to Ramirez y Sesma’s command]; Deaf Smith went as far as Gonzales. All [the Texians] were anxious to fight – the Panic was to advance, not retreat. Houston cursing them, and drawing a line [in the dirt], called out, ‘All
of you who are so full of fight step out to this line. I will see whose faces will turn pale.’ With the exception of his staff, and those subservient to his will, all came up to the mark. All volunteered to whip the enemy. So report many officers. Seeing they were ready to meet the enemy. Houston ordered a retreat in fifteen minutes to San Felipe.” Given the other verified reports of Houston’s behavior on the Colorado River during the army’s retreat, there is every reason to believe the Sherman report, a previously unknown and unused source on Houston.64

  Walter Lord, author of A Time To Stand, was not aware of all of the evidence that has been presented in this chapter. He, however, knew about some of it, and despite the inconsistencies and impossible feats reported in the Zuber story of Rose’s escape, Lord accepted the tall tale as the truth. Jeff Long simply followed in many of Lord’s footsteps when he penned his anti-Alamo tome, Duel of Eagles. In total, the two writers’ acceptance of the Rose story highlights a major problem in historical research methodology. Historians often operate on the fragile precept that any report by an old veteran, no matter how absurd or unbelievable, is the truth until it is proven otherwise.

  Chapter Five Notes

  1 W. P. Zuber, “The Escape of Rose From the Alamo,” The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, V: 1.

  2 Long, Duel, data comes from the front flap of the book’s dust jacket.

  3 Long, Duel, 232-234, 337-338.

  4 W. P. Zuber, “An Escape From the Alamo,” The Texas Almanac for 1873, 80-85.

  5 Rufus Grimes to E. M. Pease, Navasota, July 29, 1876, Alamo Strays Box, TSL.

  6 “The Alamo Again: Facts in Regard to Its Defense and Fall Not Heretofore Published,” San Antonio Express, December 17, 1905.

  7 Zuber, “The Escape of Rose,” W. P. Zuber, “Rose’s Escape From the Alamo,” in “Notes and Fragments,” The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, VI: 67-69.

  8 Ruby Mixon, “William Barret Travis, His Life and Letters” (unpublished master’s thesis, The University of Texas, 1930).

  9 Williams, “A Critical Study,” XXVII: 31.

  10 Lord, A Time, 202.

  11 J. Frank Dobie, “The Line That Travis Drew,” Dallas News, March 31, 1940.

  12 Wichita Times, Wichita Falls, April 7, 1940.

  13 Claude Elliott, “Book Reviews,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XLIII: 532-533.

  14 Ibid.

  15 Lord, A Time, 202.

  16 W. P. Zuber, “An Account of the Adventures of Moses Rose, Who Escaped from the Alamo,” in Anna M. J. Pennybacker, A New History of Texas for Schools (Palestine: Percy V. Pennybacker, 1895), 183-188; William Physick Zuber, Janis Boyle Mayfield, ed., My Eighty Years in Texas (Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1971), 247-255.

  17 Steven G. Kellman, “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” Journal of American Culture, Vol. 2, Number 2, 46, and 48, endnote 7. Kellman believed that he found French military records (AF IV 858, plaquette 6900, cote 91-47, and page 192 of the third volume of the records of the 101st Regiment) that proved Louis Rose of Nacogdoches, Texas, had been a member of the French army. The documents identified a Louis Rose, who had been born on May 11, 1785, Laferee, Ardennes. This Rose had served in the 101st Regiment of the French army. The man started out as a private in 1806. By 1814 Rose had climbed the ranks to become a lieutenant. On March 12, 1814, Rose was named to the Legion of Honor for his part as the aide-de-camp to General Jacques de Monfort.

  Remember that Louis Rose of Nacogdoches was illiterate. A soldier in Napoleon’s army did not have to be able to read and write to be promoted to the rank of lieutenant. However, it is very unlikely that a lieutenant who was illiterate could serve as an aide-de-camp to a general. Also, the French military records show no service for Louis Rose in Russia. Therefore, it is unlikely that the French documents Kellman found pertain to Louis Rose of Nacogdoches.

  Moreover, Zuber also claimed Rose had carried the mail between Nacogdoches and Natchitoches, Louisiana. Again, it is unlikely that Rose could have performed that job if he had been illiterate.

  18 See Chapter Four for data on returning couriers. As of March 3, three couriers to Gonzales had returned. Also, James B. Bonham had entered the Alamo with news about reinforcement activities at Goliad and Gonzales.

  19 Zuber, “An Account of the Adventures,” Pennybacker, A New History, 183-188; Zuber, My Eighty Years, 247-255.

  20 Lon Tinkle, 13 Days to Glory: The Siege of the Alamo (New York, Toronto, London: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1958), 179.

  21 Huffines, Blood of Noble Men, 128, n. 8.

  22 J. R. Edmondson, The Alamo Story: From Early History to Current Conflicts (Plano, Texas: Republic of Texas Press, 2000), 396.

  23 William B. Travis to Jesse Grimes, March 3, 1836, Bexar, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IV: 504-505. Of course Zuber would have probably argued that Travis could not tell the difference between black and blood red.

  24 Louis Rose character certificate, number 580, 1835 Entrance Certificates, Nacogdoches Archives, TSL.

  25 Zuber, “An Escape,” 80.

  26 William T. Austin, “Account of the Campaign of 1835,” 300-301.

  27 Stephen F. Austin, “General Austin’s Order Book for the Campaign of 1835,” The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, II: 2; James Bowie to Stephen F. Austin, Camp below Bexar, November 2, 1835, Jenkins, ed., Papers, II: 297; Samuel Maverick, Samuel Maverick, Texan: 1803-1870, Rena Maverick Green, ed. (San Antonio: Rena Maverick Green, 1952), 35-36. Bowie’s inability to take orders from Austin was such that word of their quarreling reached Maverick, who was a prisoner within the city.

  In the 1870s a number of Mexican-Texians filed pension applications (Republic of Texas Pension Collection, Texas State Library) in which they reported they had served under Bowie at the battle of Concepcion on October 28, 1835. The men were Mathias Maldonado, Ferman Martinez, Manuel Martinez, Joaquin Casas, Juan Reyes, Antonio Garza, Seferino Huizar, Luis Gomez, and Canuto Dias. A number of the men were from Goliad and initially had been members of a Tejano unit from Goliad that had been commanded by Placido Benavides, who was from Victoria. The unit probably included more men, but Bowie never completed a muster roll for his crew, or if he did complete a roster, it has not survived.

  28 Austin, “Order Book,” 34; Barr, Texans in Revolt, 30-31. Results of this election can be found in Lamar Papers, I: 259, the document is, however, incorrectly dated November 24, 1835.

  29 Jones, Memoranda and Official Correspondence, 12-13. Jones wrote that he had made a public expression of his feelings about the “denunciation” of Stephen F. Austin by Houston, Bowie, and Archer. Then, Jones reported: “Col. John A. Wharton, came to me and assured me my life was in danger from some rude attack which was threatened, and advised me, that, however true and just my remarks might be, it was not the disposition of some parties to allow the utterance of them.”

  30 George M. Patrick to Moses Austin Bryan, August 8, 1878, Anderson, Box 2H120, Texas Veterans Association Papers, CAH; G. M. Patrick to Moses Austin Bryan, March 15, 1875, Anderson, Box 2N251, Texas Veterans Association Papers, CAH.

  Bowie’s horses would have been what a horse trainer of today would describe as “legged-up,” that is: animals with strong legs and running endurance because they were ridden all the time.

  In 1875 Patrick wrote this about James Bowie: “I traveled from Nacogdoches to San Felipe and thence, after the close of the Consultation to San Antonio, with dispatches to Genl. Austin, with Col. James Bowie, in which time I learned to esteem him as a social, cautious and in every respect an agreeable gentleman, instead of the overbearing, blood thirsty tyrant that he had been represented by others to be.”

  The James Bowie entry in William S. Speer and John Henry Brown, eds., The Encyclopedia of the New West (Marshall, Texas: The United States Biographical Publishing Company, 1881), 436-437, quotes Captain Archibald Hotchkiss as reporting: “Late in 1835 I traveled with him [Bowie] from San Antonio to San Felipe. . . .” Hotchkis
s said that previous to their departure, Bowie had traveled to the Rio Grande, burning the grass to prevent the advance of the Mexican cavalry. One individual, J. R. Edmondson, The Alamo Story, 230, believes that the Hotchkiss data proves the negative Patrick claims wrong. Hotchkiss, however, appears to have been wrong. A. Hotchkiss to the Council, November 5, 1835, Jenkins, ed., Papers, II: 333 shows that Hotchkiss was in San Augustine in far East Texas in early November 1835. If Hotchkiss rode to San Felipe with Bowie in 1835, it was probably in late December.

  Also, Bowie most likely did not go on a grass-burning mission in November or any other time. Stephen F. Austin to James W. Fannin Jr., November 14, 1836, Mission Concepcion, Jenkins, ed., Papers, II: 407 shows that Austin ordered Salvador Flores and his company “to go on as far as beyond the Nueces to examine whether any troops are on the road, they will also burn the whole country as far as they go. . . .”

  31 Patrick to Austin, August 8, 1878.

  32 Austin, “Order Book,” 53-54; Edward Burleson to the Provisional Government, Bexar, November 27, 1835, Jenkins, ed., Papers, III: 5-6; Austin, “Account of the Campaign of 1835,” 318. William T. Austin claimed that Bowie was sent to Goliad to “Superintend the strengthening of the fortifications” of the old fort in anticipation of the Bexar troops retiring to Goliad.

  33 Journal of the General Council, 145, 208, Box 2-9/18, TSL; Yoakum, History of Texas, II: 57-58. Captain Blount was most likely William S. Blount, a recent arrival to San Augustine.

  34 Neill to Houston, January 14, 1836; Houston to Smith, January 17, 1836; Cooke account, Lamar Papers, IV: part I, 42-46; [John] Chenoweth’s Co., Mustered into service February 1836, Muster Roll book, 68, GLO; J. H. Nash, January 18, 1836, Bexar, a claim for service as an express courier for James Bowie, Audited Military Claims Ledger, 19, TSL; Manuel Barragan to Martin Perfecto de Cos, June 29, 1835, Bexar, BA-CAH. The Barrgan missive reports that Bowie had left Texas for Mississippi “with the goal of recruiting adventurers.”